Free The Obsession by Nora Roberts Page B

basketball. I’ll play my ass off if it helps me get into Harvard.”
    “Harvard? Are you serious?”
    “They don’t have scholarships, but they have like incentive programs. I’m going to get into Harvard, study medicine, get my degree. And maybe I’ll use it to get into the FBI, into behavior analysis.”
    “God, Mason, you’re fourteen.”
    “You were three years younger when you saved a life.” He leaned forward, those golden brown eyes intense. “I’m never going to be like him. I’m going to be somebody who helps stop people like him, who learns to understand so they can. You stopped him, Naomi. But he’s not the only one.”
    “If you do all that, you’ll never put it behind you.”
    “You put something behind you, Nome, it’s got its eyes on your back. I’d rather keep it in front of me, so I can see where it’s going.”
    —
    I t scared her, what he’d said, and more the coolheaded logic behind it. He was her baby brother, often a pain in her butt, regularly goofy, and a slave to Marvel comics.
    And he not only had aspirations, he had lofty ones he spoke of as if he’d already checked them off a list.
    He’d spied on their mother. Naomi could admit to watching her mother—and closely. Living with Susan was like carrying around something delicate. You watched every step so you didn’t stumble, drop the delicate so it shattered.
    She could admit to herself, and now to Mason, a huge sense of disappointment with their mother. Mixed in with the sincere effort to make some sort of a life had been lies and deception. And over a man who’d taken lives, ruined others.
    Was it love that drove her? Naomi wondered.
    If it was, she didn’t want any part of it.
    She’d try sex, because whatever the books and songs and movies said, she knew one didn’t have to walk arm in arm with the other. She considered the best way to go about it, knew there was no way she’d discussbirth control with her mother. And as much as she loved Seth and Harry, such a conversation would be mortifying.
    So the next time she went to the doctor, she’d ask. Then when she decided to have sex, she’d be prepared.
    Maybe Mason was right, and if she put it, or tried to put it, all behind her, it meant the whole ugly business could rush up to nip at her heels anytime it wanted.
    Like with the movie.
    So as fall came to New York, she set it aside. She didn’t like the idea of keeping it straight in front of her—couldn’t you just trip over it then? But setting aside seemed like a good compromise.
    And for right now her mother got out of bed every day, got dressed, went to work. Naomi kept busy with school, her yearbook and school paper assignments, and considering which boy it made the most sense to have sex with when the time came.
    But she made it a point to get her uncle alone and speak to him about the movie.
    “It’s coming out in just a few weeks now.”
    “Honey, I know. Harry and I planned to talk to you and Mason about it.”
    “But not Mama?”
    “I’ll talk with her. I hate having to. She’s doing so well right now. But the movie doesn’t change anything. Your lives are here now. That part of your lives is over.”
    “Not for her. You need to talk with Mason.”
    “Why?”
    “You need to talk with him. It’s his to tell.”
    Naomi didn’t know what her uncle said to her mother, but after a couple of dark days, Susan came out again.
    She took Naomi shopping for a new dress for homecoming, insisted on making a day of it. A rare thing.
    “Anything looks good on you, honey, you’re so tall and slim, but don’t you want something with some color?”
    Naomi turned in the dressing room, checked front and back on the short black dress with its cinched waist and square-necked bodice.
    “I’ll be taking pictures more than dancing. The black’s better for that than the pink.”
    “You ought to have a date,” Susan insisted. “Why aren’t you going out with that nice boy anymore? Mark.”
    “Oh.”